


if my head is full of you

by maih_em



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Box is flirting, But also, Camping, First Kiss, Fluff, It's Idiot Time!, M/M, Morse is an asshole, Ronnie Box is a softie, and George is a disaster, canon divergence in that box is less of a prick, kind of a crack fic, this is basically Cowley do the bronze DofE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23797564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maih_em/pseuds/maih_em
Summary: Apparently, Division thought an annual team-building exercise was essential to the running of a successful CID, something which Bright wasn’t too happy about given that his station would be overrun by detectives from other departments for the weekend. This summer, word arrived that they had to complete a hike through the Oxfordshire countryside and camp out overnight like bloody Boy Scouts.It’s safe to say, nobody was particularly excited for it.
Relationships: Ronnie Box/George Fancy
Comments: 11
Kudos: 20





	if my head is full of you

**Author's Note:**

> This started as an idea for a morse/jakes fic but I had a brainwave yesterday and it became This, which I honestly think is one of my favourite things i've ever written and it was so fun to make so here u go x

_My bed is made for two and there's nothing I can do  
So tell me something I don't know  
If my head is full you, is there nothing I can do?_

* * *

Apparently, Division thought an annual team-building exercise was essential to the running of a successful CID, something which Bright wasn’t too happy about given that his station would be overrun by detectives from other departments for the weekend. This summer, word arrived that they had to complete a hike through the Oxfordshire countryside and camp out overnight like _bloody Boy Scouts_.

It’s safe to say, nobody was particularly excited for it.

The day of the hike arrived, sunny and golden, but that didn’t make the task ahead of them any more appealing. It wasn’t so much the walk that George was dreading but putting up with the company.

Trewlove was nice, of course, Thursday full of stories but probably feeling a little out of place amongst his younger colleagues, and Strange was always easy to get along with, but whatever mood Morse was in had the potential to make or break everything, and George didn’t know Box all too well outside of the context of the pub or work.

They met at the station in the morning and were driven to their start point, before being left in a field with nothing but a map and their heavily laden backpacks. “Does anyone want to volunteer to navigate?” Thursday asked, holding out the map, but he was met with silence.

“Shotgun not me!” George called out quickly. They’d probably end up halfway to London if he was allowed any control over their direction.

Eventually, Thursday gave up and started looking at the map himself, clearly far more experienced than any of the rest of them. They set off down the hill rather enthusiastically, but soon the prospect of carrying a huge backpack all day as well as having to make _small talk_ with his colleagues for the entire day was seeming even less attractive than it had done before they started.

He managed to kill about half an hour talking about a recent football game with Strange and Trewlove, and for a while Inspector Thursday regaled them with some childhood story of a disastrous family camping trip.

George struggled to see how they’d make it to the end of the day, let alone to the end of the hike tomorrow.

They were in it for the long haul.

-

“Horse!” George cried out later as he saw one in the field over, something which had always been tradition in his family. Trewlove giggled at his exclamation, but the rest of the group looked at him in confusion. Morse particularly threw him a frustrated glance and rolled his eyes. _Clearly_ he was above all that. Or perhaps he just hated horses.

A scowling Morse muttered something that George couldn’t quite work out before continuing to walk.

“ _Someone’s_ in a mood,” Box commented under his breath, the words hot in George’s ear. He laughed, largely to distract himself from the way his stomach had twisted into a knot.

“Mm. Nothing new there then.”

“Probably gets a kick outta it. Being an arsehole to everyone, all high an’ mighty.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, I think I just felt rain,” Trewlove groaned suddenly and, as if on cue, there came an ominous crack of thunder and rain started to bucket down. The group scrambled to find shelter under the trees with a chorus of obscenities.

George chucked off his rucksack and rummaged in it for a coat; he’d bought one that was actually waterproof for this exact occasion.

“Did _Mummy_ pack that for you?” Box snickered, teasing.

George pulled a face at him. The DI regarded him for a moment before reaching hand across the space between them and ruffling his damp hair with a laugh. George couldn’t help but fixate on how it pulled; it sent him all shivery and hot at the same time and he had to force himself not to lean into the touch. He gulped.

It took about ten minutes for the rain to settle from a downpour to a shower, at which point they set off again, navigating the mud and puddles which littered the footpath.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, Morse started jabbering on about how much of a waste of time this was, how _good old-fashioned policing_ didn’t have anything to do with reading maps or pitching tents, and George noticed Box roll his head back in frustration.

They all _knew_ this was bullshit. No need to spell it out.

The group naturally divided after that as the path narrowed. Thursday and Trewlove at the front, and Strange a couple of paces behind having his ear talked off by a grumbling Morse. That left Box, who had started to hang back as soon as Morse opened his mouth, alongside George to bring up the rear.

“D’you fancy a fag?” Box held out a pack to him when the rain had lessened. George didn’t typically smoke, but something about the way Box was offering it made it hard to refuse, so he took a cigarette and held it between his lips.

Box leaned closer to light it for him, and for just a moment the gesture felt far warmer and more intimate than it should have done.

_No. Stop it._

He focused on the warmth of the cigarette and the feeling of smoke in his throat, desperate not to think about the man next to him or how their hands kept brushing when the path tapered inwards.

Mercifully, they soon stopped for lunch, sitting in a circle in a small field, and George had to lay his coat out to sit on because the ground was still wet from the rain. Morse managed to keep mostly quiet; small blessings, George supposed.

He bit into his sandwich enthusiastically, although it had gotten rather squashed and warm in his rucksack, so it was hardly gourmet. He made his way through about two thirds of it before noticing a spot of mould on one of the crusts and losing his appetite altogether. He sighed, annoyed, and took a sip of water instead.

Apparently, Box noticed this. “You need feeding up, you do,” he said as he chucked George what looked like some kind of protein bar from across the circle, a mischievous glint in his eye. “You’re like a twig; could snap you in half if I wanted.”

George stared at the other man. He was starting to think that he wouldn’t mind being snapped in half at all, provided Ronnie Box was the one doing it. He swallowed nervously, trying to push down the uneasy thoughts and wave of heat that came with such a thought.

He spent the rest of lunch staring firmly at the ground.

-

Given how heavily it had been raining, it was inevitable that some parts of the footpath were thick with mud, and almost flooded in some places. It made the afternoon leg of their journey slow and treacherous, especially with George’s overloaded bag making him so unbalanced.

Before he even knew what was happening to him, his boots skittered across a patch of mud, and then, for one terrifying moment, he wasn’t touching anything at all. He let out a strangled yelp as he crashed to the ground. “ _Fuck_!”

Strange and Box were the first to burst out laughing at the sight of him, muddy and all sprawled out on the ground, struggling to get back up from the weight of his bag. Even Thursday, although trying to appear concerned, had to restrain a chuckle.

He flipped them all off.

Still disorientated and winded, flailing blindly, George suddenly saw a hand in front of his face. He regarded it curiously for a moment before realising it was Box, offering to help him up. He took the hand thankfully, and _definitely_ didn’t see how the muscles of the older man’s arms flexed as he pulled George to his feet. _Definitely_ didn’t think about everything those arms could do to him.

Not at all. He was, of course, busy brushing the worst of the mud off himself, and not paying any attention to how warm the DI’s hand was.

“You oughta be careful there Georgie,” Box grinned, “Like I said, you’ll snap in half.”

Flushing for a moment at how nice ‘ _Georgie_ ’ sounded on Box’s lips, George tested the waters just a little, jeering, “ _well_ if I’m so delicate, why don’t you bloody carry me the whole way?”

“I think you’ll manage.”

He worried that the moment was gone, but the next time the path got muddy, at some ditch that someone had balanced a plank over to help people cross although it had been slightly buried over time, Box offered his hand once again as a support.

George Fancy was unbelievably fucked.

-

It was a great relief to everyone when they finally arrived at their campsite for the night, where they could refill their bottles and have a piss in an actual toilet rather than just in the bushes. George dropped his rucksack to the ground with an almost obscene groan of relief, massaging his aching shoulders and keenly kicking off his stiff boots in favour of some comfier trainers.

“You can’t rest yet, matey.” Strange nudged him from behind. “You’ve still got a tent to put up.”

Of course, both Trewlove and Thursday had individual tents to themselves, but aside from that, the sleeping arrangements were much the same as the groups they had been walking in. Strange took one for the team as the only one who could tolerate Morse, and that left George sharing a tent with Box.

Which would have been fine, except he was fairly sure they’d been flirting all day. Perhaps it was still fine, or even more than fine, but that didn’t make George any less nervous about the whole affair.

Box relegated him to putting together the tent poles because it was definitely the only thing he could be trusted with, and for the most part he sat on top of his rucksack watching Box do all of the hard work.

Watching, staring, trying not to let his mind wander too far.

The sun was getting low in the sky by the time the tents were up, bathing the campsite (and Box) in a warm orange glow. It was almost dangerous, seeing him like that. It made George think all kinds of things that he didn’t need to be distracting himself while he was hammering tent pegs into the ground. (He only his is thumb with the mallet once… okay, perhaps twice. Or more; he really hadn’t been keeping count.)

Then came the ordeal of cooking dinner. Thursday made light work of building up a campfire while Morse set up the little gas stove Division had given them and started boiling some water for pasta. After a slight moment of panic when they thought they’d forgotten to pack the Dolmio, before finding it right at the bottom of Strange’s bag, they managed to cobble together an oddly acceptable meal.

Sure, the pasta was claggy, and it went cold rather quickly on their little plastic plates, but nobody complained. In fact, nobody said a word until all the plates were empty.

Strange volunteered to wash up, and Trewlove tagged along with him to help, which left a tired Thursday quietly smoking on the outskirts of the group. Box was sprawled out on his back with his hands behind his head, completely oblivious to both Morse glaring daggers at him, and George staring not at all subtly at the pale sliver of stomach revealed by his t-shirt riding up.

Soon they were all crowded around the campfire nursing hot cups of tea, coffee and, in George’s case, hot chocolate. Though the group dynamic had been uncomfortable during the walk, the tension had eased now that they were all comfortable and well fed. It was easier to just sit and _be_ , surrounded by his colleagues and almost-friends as they stared with tired, glazed eyes into the crackling flames.

“Right, I’m off to bed,” Thursday said as the warm sunset turned colder and darker, groaning as he stood up, having begun to stiffen from the walk. “We’ve got another long day tomorrow.” Trewlove disappeared into her own tent not long after, as did Strange and Morse once the chill had started to overpower the dying heat of the fire.

George was cold, but rather enjoying himself out in the open air, surrounded by stars and the glowing embers floating from the fire. And Box was warm, in any case, so he stayed out as the last vestiges of the sunset faded to black.

Eventually, though, he did begin to shiver, but something in him desperately wanted to stay out here with Box for as long as he could. He held his hands closer to the fire and rubbed them together to try and get some feeling back.

“Cold?” came a gravelly voice, right in his ear again. George nodded slowly.

Box shifted away from him for a moment, and the cold air that rushed into the space between them was almost unbearable, but he noticed the other man begin to shrug off his jacket, and soon it was being wrapped around him like he was some damsel in distress. He was thankful that the darkness disguised his blush.

Hesitantly, George tipped his head sideways a little until it came to rest against Box’s shoulder, and it was easy after that to nestle against the older man. You know, for warmth. Platonically.

The squeak of a cork caught his attention; Box suddenly had a half-empty bottle of whiskey in his hands, which didn’t seem very in line with Division’s guidelines that they bring _only what is absolutely necessary for the night_. He took a few sips from the bottle (George didn’t notice at all how his neck moved when he drank) before pressing it into George’s hands.

“Cheers,” he said, trying to appear calm and relaxed despite the tightness of his voice indicating anything but.

They passed the bottle back and forth for a while, George melting further into Box’s side with each sip. It felt so natural, so easy, although if they were removed from this context it would just be a pining constable and his detective inspector, his _boss_ , about as far from easy as you could get.

Out of the corner of his eye, George saw a tiny streak in the sky. “Shooting star,” he mumbled against the neck of the bottle.

“Where?”

“Well it’s bloody gone now, hasn’t it?”

Barely a moment later, Box’s arm shifted to point in a vague direction above them. “Shootin’ star. We’re even now.”

“Make a wish.”

Box made a confused sound.

“Make a wish.” George turned to him, and their faces were far closer than he’d expected; he could smell the alcohol on Box’s breath as he exhaled tightly. “That’s what you do when you see a shooting star: _make a wish_.”

And it was as easy as breathing to let Box close the gap between them, with just a hint of a smile, and press their lips together.

_Christ._

The borrowed jacket fell from George’s shoulders as he reached up to wrap his arms around Box’s neck, and this time he didn’t feel the sting of cold because his skin may as well have been _on fire_.

Once he felt Box nip his bottom lip lightly, well, that was a bloody gateway drug, wasn’t it? He surged forwards until he was practically in Box’s lap, clawing desperately at any fabric he could reach, and then he changed his mind and settled his hands in the man’s hair, tugging at it slightly to pull them even closer together.

He parted his lips to Box’s searching tongue, letting himself be kissed until he was numb and almost dizzy with it all. The hand that cupped his jaw was far softer, far gentler than anything he would have expected from the man, and it made something very far from lust flutter inside him.

“Jesus,” George gasped when Box began working kisses from his mouth, right along his jaw to his earlobe, and then all the way down his neck. He tugged lightly at George’s hair to tilt his head backwards and give him more space to work, and bloody hell if that wasn’t the hottest thing in the world. “ _Jesus Christ_.”

“Nah, just me.” George felt the words as much as heard them, felt them rumble in Box’s chest and against the sensitive skin of his own neck.

“ _God_ , you’re so… you’re…” George fumbled, gasping for breath, neurones firing nineteen to the dozen. “You’re…”

“Spit it out, lovey.” Box’s teeth grazed the base of his neck.

“ _You’resofuckingfit_ ,” George finally managed to choke out, electricity dancing across his skin. “You’re… _so_ fucking fit, I want…” His words left him again then, but he managed to get his hand against Box’s flies, so that seemed to get his point across.

Smirking, Box clambered up to his feet, and George followed keenly, reaching up to kiss him again once they were standing. He was suddenly thankful that their tent was pitched at the end of the line and as far away from Inspector Thursday’s as possible.

Although, what with the awkwardness of clambering into the tent and how small the space actually was once it was filled out by two people trying to undress simultaneously, a lot of the heat had left their kisses by the time they were lying down next to each other. Box had a lazy arm slung across him, and he nuzzled against George’s hair as they found a comfortable position against one another. He let out a hum of contentment.

When George caught a glimpse of Box’s face, the smile he saw was equal parts smug and tender, something which he never expected to see on his boss, especially not knowing that _he was the one that put it there_.

Perhaps camping wasn’t all that bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Me, at 11pm: yeah i've almost finished this, I'll post it tonight  
> Me, 1k words later at past 3am: why did I not see this coming?
> 
> I love box/fancy so much??? They're literally MADE for each other. Also yall don't even knOW how close this was to becoming smut but 1) i'm tired and 2) i don't think i'd be very good at it but anyway thank u for reading this if you've made it this far.
> 
> title from Mulder and Scully by catatonia


End file.
